60 Seconds

Fertility restored

Ovarian tissue transplants may restore fertility. Samuel Kim from the University of Kansas Medical Center tracked five women who had the transplant after surviving cancer. Hormonal activity was restored in all five (Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics, DOI&colon; 10.1007/s10815-012-9757-3).

Asteroid impact

You would have to go to the moon or Mars to find a bigger impact crater than the one discovered in Greenland. Caused by a gigantic asteroid collision 3 billion years ago, the crater is the oldest on Earth – but the finding is controversial (Earth and Planetary Science Letters, DOI&colon; 10.1016/j.epsl.2012.04.026).

Magnetic reversal?

Could we be witnessing the start of a reversal of Earth’s geomagnetic field? That’s the tentative suggestion from computer models created by Peter Olson and Renaud Deguen of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland (Nature Geoscience, DOI&colon; 10.1038/ngeo1506). A reversal could expose us to solar winds capable of knocking out power grids.

China’s place in space

Liu Yang, the first Chinese woman in space, returned to Earth on 29 June. Liu and her colleagues, Jing Haipeng and Liu Wang, had completed the first crewed mission to the Chinese space station, Tiangong-1 (“Heavenly Place”) where they performed experiments required for the creation of a larger module.

Can’t stop the sea

Some sea level rise is inevitable and will continue for centuries, even if we stabilise global temperatures by cutting greenhouse gas emissions, according to a paper in Nature Climate Change (DOI&colon; 10.1038/nclimate1529). Acting quickly, however, will buy time for low-lying communities to adapt.

To continue reading this premium article, subscribe for unlimited access.